Atlanta, GA -If you’ve noticed Coca-Cola bottles with yellow-colored caps materialize each March and April, what you’re looking at is the result of a burgeoning market in parve soda. Most commercial sodas, with their heavy doses of corn syrup and traces of alcohol from grain, are forbidden.
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Thirsty Passover observers have an Atlanta-based Orthodox rabbi, Tobias Geffen, to thank. In the 1930s, Geffen was given Coca-Cola’s famously secret list of ingredients and managed to persuade the company to create a real-sugar alternative for his congregants.
“Because Coca-Cola has already been accepted by the general public in this country and Canada and because it has become an insurmountable problem to induce the great majority of Jews to refrain from partaking of this drink, I have tried earnestly to find a method of permitting its usage,” he said.
Not wanting to be left out, Pepsi, Sprite, Sierra Mist and many others are now available in kosher form for Passover.
still waiting for sunkist, or even fanta to make orange soda kosher for pesach…
It’s hugely popular with the goyim too. It seems most people prefer the sweetness from pure sugar rather than from corny syrup. I know of goyim who stock up with several cases to keep for use at a Memorial Day BBQ.
Lets not forget that all those products are not made for use in the heimishe communities who are medakdek not to buy for pesach only the real important products we need for cooking and baking…Of course we are not talking about crisps or lady fingers for the small kids …..wishing all a chag sumyach and kusheren pesach..
Companies like Coca Cola don’t HAVE to do this. They don’t make more money on it and they don’t have anything to gain. It is a long-standing tradition just like the Maxwell House Haggadah. We should thank companies like Coca Cola for helping us keep our costs low during Pesach, and allowing us to enjoy our favorite drinks (Diet coke for me) during Pesach as well.
Parve?